Hold Your Breath
by soleilnoire
Summary: Beginning with mistaken identity at the annual pureblood Summer Ball, Remus and Narcissa discover more about each other than they would ever have dreamed. A tale of love, heartbreak and adversity. RL/NB


Hold Your Breath

Title from 'we build then we break' by The Fray, specifically the lines

'Hold your breath 'til it's over

There's something left underwater'

remus/narcissa

Summer - 1978

"Narcissa, darling, is it possible for you to be any slower?" Mother snapped acerbically from her room across the hall.

I had to bite my lip to stop myself from snapping back. Andromeda, who had already finished getting ready and was lying lazily on my bed in her full skirted green silk robes, made a sympathetic face. I pulled on the silk stockings while I gathered my temper. "I am hurrying, Maman," I called out politely as I slipped into the shift.

"Andromeda, don't think I don't know you're in there," Mother called back, ignoring my answer, "If I find you've rumpled your dress robes you won't be allowed out of the house for the rest of the summer,"

"Yes, Maman," Andromeda called sweetly. I stifled a giggle at the ridiculous mockery of a sweet smile she had on her face.

"I expect to see both of you in the Entrance Hall in half an hour," Mother said irritably, "without exception or excuse, Andromeda," she added and Andy pouted. I listened for the rustle of her robes over the carpet and the click of her shoes on the staircase as she went downstairs before I turned back to Andromeda.

"Why?" Andy moaned, rolling around and thoroughly crumpling her dress robes, "The guests won't even arrive for another two hours, what does she expect us to do?"

I couldn't hold back a smile at the antics. Andy was right, Mother had been ridiculous all week and it was driving the both of us crazy. The Summer Ball was the highlight of the pureblood summer social calendar and this year it would be held at the Black family Manor, hence Mother's worried mood.

It had been insufferable all week, running errands, buying dress robes, organizing meals, decorations, invitations, and the list was never ending. Bella never failed to rouse Mother out of her horrible moods, she was the golden child of the family after all, but unfortunately Bella hadn't returned from the Lestrange's summer house yet. She was supposed to have arrived an hour ago. No doubt she was having too much fun down at the beach.

"Help me lace up the dress, will you, Andy?" I asked, frowning at the shimmery grey material. "I'll do your hair properly; you know Maisy never gets it right."

"Ugh, alright," she agreed, looking frumpy, "You are so lazy, Narcissa,"

I rolled my eyes in the mirror, making sure she saw. For a recently turned nineteen year old, Andromeda wasn't very mature. However, her hands were gentle as she helped me fasten the beautiful robes. She was nicer than she pretended to be. A lone Ravenclaw in a family of Slytherins, apart from Sirius, who didn't count, her abrasive manners were often just a defense mechanism. Unlike Bella, who really meant it when she was mean.

I pinned her hair up properly in return, the way she liked it. Elegant, but slightly messy, the way a trained house elf could never get right. I used my wand to braid my fair hair and twist it into a bun at the back of my head.

"Do you suppose Bella's back yet?" Andromeda asked me wistfully, from where she was standing at the window. I knew what she was feeling. We three were so used to being together over the summer after being separated all year that Bella's absence was painful.

"Shall we go to the courtyard?" I said, giving my robes last minute adjustments with my wand, referring to the apparition location just outside the house.

"We're late for Mother," Andy in a strange voice, "let's just go downstairs,"

I gave her a sharp look, but she turned away from the window expressionless. It wasn't like Andy to refuse an opportunity to upset Mother. I suspected an ulterior motive.

I performed a quick straightening charm on her robes before we left the room and she gave me a curiously genuine smile and linked arms with me. Something was definitely up.

"Don't change, Cissy," she said softly, as we swept down the staircase together arm in arm, "you're too good to be in with this lot, you know," I gave her a startled look, wondering how this was prompted by Bella's absence and who exactly she meant by 'this lot'.

"That sounds like something Sirius would say," I said sharply, withdrawing my arm, before I could inquire further she gave me an enigmatic little smile and we were at the bottom of the staircase.

"Good evening, girls," Father said, looking up from his paper and giving us a rare smile as we entered the parlor.

Andromeda swept over to give Father a kiss on the cheek and I settled on the piano seat, arranging my robes elegantly. Andy got along quite well with Father, who appreciated her intellect and ability to talk about something other than dress robes. Something I, apparently, didn't possess. I was well versed in other areas of conversation, I just liked to irritate him, something he probably knew. Needless to say my father and I didn't exactly see eye to eye.

"Those are lovely dress robes, Narcissa," Father removed his pipe and surveyed me over his glasses, "Are they new?" If I wasn't mistaken, there was a definite mocking edge to his voice.

"Indeed, they're made from imported silk from India actually," I replied, flicking the fan at my wrist in and out in a characteristic gesture. Bella always told me she could tell my mood at parties from how I was playing with my fan.

"Very nice," Father grunted and returned to the Prophet. Andy smirked from the window seat behind him.

I was idly fooling around on the piano an hour or so later when I heard shouting out in the hall. I looked around to check if Andy had heard the same, but abruptly realised she wasn't in the room. Father was still sitting in his chair, immersed in the finance section. Mother had rushed in fifteen minutes ago dithering about last minute menu changes but was currently nowhere to be seen.

Intrigued, I slid off the piano stool and followed the raised voices out into the Hall. The Entrance Hall was looking more stunning than usual since darkness had fallen and the soft hovering candlelight gave the room an ethereal air.

" – bloody Lestrange is in with some bad people, everyone knows that! Merlin, Bellatrix!" it was Andromeda. She was standing at the bottom of the staircase, her hands fisted on green silk-clad hips and her hair curling out of her bun, looking up at Bella. Bella was still in a dusty travelling cloak, her dark hair loose around her face and a dangerous expression on her face.

I stopped where I was, willing to sit this fight out. When Bella looked like that it wasn't worth arguing.

"Listen, Andromeda," Bella hissed, coming down a step closer, "It's none of your business who I associate with. I know exactly what I'm doing."

"That's what makes it so horrifying," Andromeda said lowly, her voice suddenly wobbly, "it's stupid, Bella, it's going to get you killed."

"What?" I couldn't help myself, the word just slipped out. Identical pairs of dark eyes turned towards me. "What's going on?"

"Cissa!" Bellatrix lithely descended, avoiding Andromeda, and came across the floor to pull me into a tight hug, "I've missed you," She smelt like sharp expensive perfume and strangely musty – reminiscent of the smell in an old closed up house. I didn't respond to her hug, only looked up to Andromeda's carefully blank expression, which said a lot more than it didn't.

"What's going on, Bella?" I repeated, looking manipulatively imploring with my big grey eyes.

She smirked at my wide-eyed expression, "'Dromeda's just exaggerating, yeah?" Andy nodded jerkily behind her and turned away to climb the stairs.

"How's summer been without me?" Bella continued as if nothing had happened, turning back up to the stairs.

"Mother's been insufferable," I replied with a small smile, but I must still looked slightly disquieted, because Bella grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze.

"I'm really fine, Cissa," she said quietly, "you know I can take care of myself, right?"

Well, I didn't doubt that, Bella was formidable in the best of moods and when crossed – it didn't bear to think about. She was a strong witch, in spell casting and theory, clearly the best of the three of us.

"Yes, I know," I replied and forced a smile, "You need to get dressed before Mother has a fit,"

Bella laughed and hurried up the stairs with me and for a moment it was like the good old times.

Mother did have a fit when she saw Bella wasn't ready, but was mollified by her reappearance in striking scarlet robes moments later.

Though my two older sisters didn't appear to recognize it, I was seventeen years old and thus not fooled by the little 'pretend-everything's-fine' act. I trusted Bella's reassurances, but similarly trusted Andy's instincts. I didn't remember Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange very well from school, both of them having graduated in my first two years of Hogwarts, but by reputation they weren't a morally upright pair. Rodolphus had been reprimanded and suspended from school in my first year for sending a sixth year Gryffindor Mudblood to 's. Both of them had been implicated in but not charged for such incidents since then.

That wasn't as scandalous in pureblood circles as it might have been in others and was definitely applauded by the extremists. My parents weren't outwardly condemning or accepting, a fatally injured sixteen year old was a fatally injured sixteen year old no matter what caliber his blood, after all. I wasn't sure what they would think of Bella getting involved in such incidences. Worried? Pleased? Upset? Proud?

I wasn't even sure of what I would think.

Arriving relatives distracted me from my meditative thoughts. Regulus was looking neat in royal blue robes. He would enter his second year at Hogwarts when we returned in September and like me, he was a Slytherin through and through. He had been a cheerful bright boy, right up until Sirius ran away. Ever since, he'd been wide-eyed and reserved. I guess living alone in a decrepit house with two borderline insane parents takes its toll.

I bobbed a neat curtsey for Walburga and Orion who replied in kind. Walburga gave me a sharp imperious look as I ushered Regulus away to the parlor but didn't protest.

"Hello, Narcissa," he said formally, once we reached the room and stood in relatively awkward silence. His grey eyes looked far too old for his years.

"Would you like a drink?" I asked tentatively, feeling lost and out of my depth. I wasn't used to talking to younger people. My interactions were limited to the house table 'pass the pumpkin juice' sort of thing. Regulus seemed worryingly perceptive too and if he was half as intelligent as his foolhardy brother he would have me tied in knots in minutes.

"Watered wine, please," he requested in a small but clear voice, sitting on the edge of Mother's favorite chair and surveying me.

I called Toddy for the wine, half surprised at Regulus' choice, though I knew I shouldn't have been knowing Walburga.

"Have you finished your holiday homework yet?" I remembered hating it when distant relatives patted me on the head and asked about school, but I really couldn't think of anything else to ask.

"Yes," he said instantly, his face brightening a little, "Father helped me with the transfiguration questions, but otherwise I did it all myself,"

"That's great," I said, relieved to have brought him out of his shell a little, "I haven't even started mine,"

"Really?" he said, looking shocked at the thought, Orion and Walburga were really cracking down on this one following the Sirius debacle. I made a mental note to write a pointed letter to Sirius about his brother's situation. Though we weren't technically supposed to communicate with our shamefully disowned cousin, Andromeda and I, at least, mostly disregarded this. We weren't friends with him by any means, but the companionship of childhood isn't easily forgotten and I didn't like the hateful Walburga any more than he did. We were acquaintances.

"Narcissa, darling, there you are," Mother cried out, entering the parlor looking resplendent in her cream robes. "I've been looking for you everywhere,"

I raised my eyebrow coolly and regarded my harried Mother.

"Run along, Regulus, dear," she said, all but shooing him out of her seat. I shot him an apologetic look as he left the room.

"Yes, Maman?" I asked pointedly, trying to focus her attention as she sat down and adjusted her robes fastidiously

"You're seventeen now, Cissy, aren't you?" Mother only used my nickname when she was feeling sentimental or wanted something. I suspected the latter.

I nodded, unable to keep my hands from going to my fan and playing with it, betraying my agitation.

"There's a young man here tonight, a young heir recently returned from France," she paused, trying to find a delicate way to phrase the words that I knew were going to come. "It would please your Father and I immensely if you were to – ah, speak nicely with him. A very well-to-do family, of course, quite distinguished – "

Translation: seduce him. Well, it wasn't new, but tended to be frightfully boring. I had been hoping for a pleasant night.

"Cissy? Maman?" Andromeda hurtled into the room, her previous mood seemingly forgotten, "We have a small problem,"

"What do you mean?" Mother stood abruptly, her hands clenched anxiously, "Andromeda, whatever do you mean?" Still a little on edge about the success of our Ball, it would seem.

"Sirius is here," she said, trying and failing to hide an air of amusement.

The idiot probably thought he was being clever. I wondered vaguely how he'd managed to get in, he'd have to have an invitation of course, but there were so many people invited it was hard to say who he'd charmed or bribed. It would have been more amusing if I had not been considering the likely odious prospect of talking to the mysterious 'heir from France' all night. He was probably ten years older than me, ugly and a dreadful bore, like the rest of them.

"Walburga hasn't seen him yet," Andy continued, as if this was all great fun, while Mother wrung her hands anxiously, "but it's only a matter of time, of course, I think he probably came with the Potters."

"Oh, I should have known when Cygnus insisted we invite Marius that it'd cause trouble," Mother fluttered, pacing across the carpet, "Quite a respected Auror, you know, but his dreadful wife –"

"I saw Walburga in the ballroom, Maman," Andy cut off Mother's anxious tirade about the Potters, "If you hurry you might be able to explain the situation before she sees him. He'll have to stay of course, we couldn't cause a scene by throwing him out,"

I suspected Walburga and Orion would be all too happy to cause a scene, but Mother would do anything to prevent scandalous gossip. Andy had nicely suggested a way to smooth things over, Mother would leap at the chance.

"Yes, of course," Mother said, flustered, "thank you, Andromeda," She rushed out into the Entrance Hall, smoothing imaginary imperfections from her hair and robes.

"How very Slytherin of you," I drawled, knowing it would annoy her, mostly because I was right. Even Ravenclaw Andromeda could be manipulative. It was probably written into our genes.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, her nose in the air, "Come dance, Cissy, its perfectly boring in here,"

"I have to be attentive to some extremely rich heir arriving from France," I said, allowing her to pull me up from the chair. "Mother didn't say his name," That was potentially problematic, Sirius was causing a whole lot of problems he wasn't even aware of.

Andy laughed, "Make sure you don't seduce the wrong one,"

I made a face at her and raised my fan with an elegant flick of my wrist, "I hardly think there can be that many heirs just arriving from France, I shall simply have to mingle,"

We entered the Ballroom, already turning heads. Apart from being the daughters of the hosts, we were also very striking, especially together. Andy's chestnut brown hair and dark eyes provided the perfect contrast to my own fair hair and grey eyes. Andy announced she was going to dance with the Minister's son, a tall nervous-looking boy a year below me at Hogwarts. I wished her well, keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. He didn't look as if he would be a graceful dance partner.

I didn't have to introduce myself to anyone, people flocked to me within moments of Andy's departure. I nodded and curtseyed according to station, smiled, flirted, listened attentively and provided adequate small talk. Even the older men fell over themselves begin introductions, their wives hiding humiliation behind silk fans. That triumph compensated for the dull conversation a hundredfold.

I was on the lookout for a dance partner, in between conversations and still keeping an eye out for my mysterious heir, when I came across the person I least wanted to see.

"Narcissa," Sirius exclaimed mockingly, his dark grey eyes dancing, "How wonderful to see you," he swept an elegant bow and kissed my hand briefly. I struggled not to roll my eyes at his exaggerated behavior.

"Sirius," I nodded, executing an insultingly brief curtsey. From the little quirk in his smile I could tell he knew I was being disrespectful. He hadn't been away for long enough to forget that much, but to his credit he took the insult in his stride.

Sirius and I had never got along terribly well, though we were matched in age and often paired together by our mothers as a result. He never understood my fascination with more sedentary pursuits – he'd always preferred running around and getting muddy. I had a healthy respect for tree climbing and Quidditch as a child, but not enough to satisfy the ever energetic Sirius. Bella and Sirius, however, had got along famously – before Sirius became the deviant Gryffindor. Bella had taken his sorting as a deep personal insult and to the best of my knowledge they hadn't had a civil conversation since. It was sad. Together those two, so alike in the classic darkly handsome Black looks and impulsive personality, had been unstoppable. I was as unlike them in personality as my Rosier fair hair was unlike their wild dark locks.

"You know my dear friend, James Potter, of course," he said gesturing to the idiot Potter, who was standing slightly behind him in green dress robes, ruffling his hair idiotically.

I curtsied properly; he was a pureblood and the child of two influential Ministry personages after all, no matter their misguided views. He murmured something polite and made an interesting bow. Imbecile.

"A drink, Sirius, James?" A tall well-dressed man offered my cousin a goblet, passing one to the Potter as well. He glanced at me briefly and didn't offer so much as a nod before looking back to my odious cousin. Courtesy and tradition dictated that such a snub was reserved for the most loathsome and repulsive of people, even a rival or a respected enemy would get a nod. I tried very hard not to show my mortification and fury, but from the sudden amused tilt to Sirius' smile he knew all too well.

"Romulus, this is my dearest cousin Narcissa Black," Sirius announced, enjoying his role of the benevolent pureblood gentleman a little too obviously. I didn't curtsey for the man, only nodded extremely briefly and boiled inside at that. I was doing my utmost to keep my face smooth, but I was sure my eyes must have conveyed a part of my fury because the man looked slightly taken aback. He bowed passably, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Potter was trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. I was glad to see he was enjoying my misfortune. "Cissy, this is Mr. Romulus Burke, from the Burke family, you know."

"I'm afraid I have not seen you around London of late, Mr. Burke?" I inquired coolly, steeling myself with a deep breath. If I hadn't been taught manners from age four, my temper might have overtaken my voice, as it was I was trying to keep my voice from slipping into what Bella would call my 'ice queen' imitation. My blond hair, clear grey eyes and fair complexion made it inevitable that I would be saddled with such a name and according to Bella and Andromeda, I had a particular haughty expression which matched an 'ice queen' perfectly.

"Oh – er, no I recently arrived from, ah – " he cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable,

"From Paris, wasn't it Burke?" Sirius interrupted, still looking unmercifully gleeful.

Paris? My blood seemed to freeze in my veins. The Burke heir? They were an extremely influential family, though their English branch had not been prosperous since the fifties, which that explained the arrival from France. If I had already offended the heir in some way, Mother would slaughter me. She would mount my head on the wall with the house elves as an example to future Black daughters. Oh, Bella and Andy were going to laugh themselves sick.

"From P-paris?" I asked, losing my composure completely, "Do you live there?"

"Yes," he replied shortly, taking a sip from his goblet. Sirius looked at me strangely but launched into a convoluted tale of his invitation to the party. Which, incidentally, not only included Marius Potter, but also our Aunt Lucrecia. I didn't pay more attention than what was required to insert a polite 'really?' and small smile at appropriate intervals. My attention was focused on the Burke, Romulus Burke. He was tall, with a long straight nose and a strange dark mop of hair which must have been magically enhanced, because that particular burnt orange color could not have existed in nature. Despite his strange hair, he was passably handsome and filled out classic black dress robes perfectly. He also appeared to detest me already.

The tale ended abruptly, with uproarious laughter from Sirius and Potter, who were very impressed by their own cleverness. I laughed politely, finishing my champagne and fluttering my fan nervously.

This was going to be more difficult than I had planned. Perhaps, however, a challenge would be more interesting. I steeled myself inside. I was Slytherin to the core and a Black daughter to boot, I would get whatever I wanted.

"Would you care to dance, Mr. Burke?"


End file.
